villagemod: (sᴛᴏɴᴇ)
The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagelogs2021-06-05 08:09 pm

063-064 » no matter how much / part ii (group A)

WHO: Group A members only.
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 063-064
WHAT: Matthias becomes a little larger and a little smaller at the same time.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ DEADLY AVENGER "Raiju"





DAY 063-064
NO MATTER HOW MUCH

“No matter how much suffering you went through,
you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
— Haruki Murakami

At first, in the calm following the storm, nothing seems amiss. When the residents awake, it is to another glorious morning dawning in the unsettling paradise that is Mathias Township. Indeed, it does seem rather glorious that morning, for there is sunshine in a blue sky that has been cleared of any remnant of the angry storm clouds from the day before. But before long, residents will start to notice signs of something being not quite right.

It should be a familiar sensation to most by now.

It begins as just a feeling, a strange hint of something in the air, a nagging voice at the back of the mind. They can't quite put their finger on it but there is something. Something wrong, something that shouldn't be — which is quite a statement in a town where everything shouldn't be. But then the pieces will begin to come together.

A person has gone who ought to be there. This in itself is not a strange occurrence, for many have vanished and then returned, or not. This time, though, it is one person, and then two and three... A dozen people or more have gone, with no trace of their whereabouts to be found.

No resident is alone, thankfully. There are others who also remain: friends, acquaintances, strangers. Others who are just as trapped in this nightmarish place.

As the hours stretch on and residents begin to venture beyond their self-claimed shelters and move about the town, they will find that their fellow captives are not the only things that have vanished. The Chasm is gone as well, the crack in the earth that once stretched across and cut off the western part of town. There is not even the smallest mark to show where it had once been; it has gone so completely that some might wonder if they had merely imagined it.






ABOUT THE NEW LOCATIONS

POPPY COTTAGE This bed and breakfast has a sense of casual elegance with the elusive quality of being both sophisticated and comfortable at the same time. Aside from being covered in dust and grime, of course.

PENHEW HOUSE Perhaps familiar to some in Mathias, this grand house is different from any of the others the residents have entered. It looks... new. Fresh. Clean. The usual thick layers of dust and grime that would be caked onto every visible surface are nowhere in sight; this absence may be a relief for some and unsettling to others. There are certainly other unsettling things to be found in this location.

THE OLD CHURCH Barely more than ruins, the property is marked by a crumbled stone outline that has no roof and only partial walls, nothing left inside besides a broken cobblestone floor.

BANEBERRY HALL From the outside, Baneberry Hall seems like your average rich person's house, but one would be mistaken to assume anything of the sort. Even the baneberries that cover the back lawn leading to the forest treeline are deceptive, for they appear harmless but are fatal to any human foolish enough to eat them.

The building is decaying from within. The rooms have begun to rot, from the parlors and libraries still done up in grand and expensive style to the bedrooms that have locks on the doors and bars on the windows. There are restraints in some of those bedrooms, while others are bereft of sharp objects. In the hall closets, there are identical sets of white pajamas of all sizes, and the offices have locked cabinets (that may be picked) full of a rainbow of sedatives (that will not replenish). The names on doors and in logbook lists are all smudged beyond legibility, and all paperwork has been water-damaged and weathered, leaving no indication of who may have been kept in those bedrooms or why. But within each room, there is an item that may be familiar to one of the residents now wandering its halls. As caked in dust and grime as anything else, each item is placed as if it belongs there, as if it might have been there for years. But it couldn't have been... could it?



ABOUT THE ITEMS FROM HOME

Within the unsettling walls of Baneberry Hall, residents may find OBJECTS that are uncomfortably familiar to them. Each item has one singular memory attached to it that, when touched in any way, will be experienced first hand, as if the person receiving it had lived it themselves. This person will endure all of the associated emotions and psychological reactions to the memory that the memory's owner experienced.

— Items may only be found within Baneberry Hall. These items from home are not all in one room or a specific location but instead are scattered throughout the bedrooms. (Only the items on this list are available to this group.)

— Ownership and possession of the item are important elements to this event. While the item is in possession of someone who is not its owner, it will continue to infect all who touch it with the memory that belonged to its owner. The item will also, before long, begin to make the possessor ill, both physically and emotionally uncomfortable and upset. This only occurs until the item is reunited with its owner, or until it is no longer in someone else's possession. (For example, if Person A finds Person B's teddy bear and carries it with them, they will continue to experience the bear's associated memory until they no longer have it in their possession, whether this means they have left it somewhere or it has been returned to Person B.)

— Recipients of memories will retain those memories even after the event has ended.

— When the owner of an item finds their item or has it returned to them, they will also experience the memory once themselves, having it returned to them as if they had just lived those moments again. The memory is only replayed once in their minds and then the memory effect of the object is gone. After this point, the item can be held by the owner or any others without consequence.

— If a person removes an item from its room in Baneberry Hall but does not remove the item from the property entirely, the item will be mysteriously returned to its original location when no one is looking. This is so that people do not have to keep close track of where items are going in the possible changing of hands, so the original owners can still easily locate the item without having to plan in great detail. Once an item is removed from the property, it will not return to its original location even if it is discarded by the possessor before reaching its original owner. Instances such as this should be planned among all involved parties, including the owner of the item.

— Once an item is removed from the property, please comment below so that information may be updated. Items that are not removed by the end of the event may reappear at a later time, so accurate records are essential.

— Before an item's memory is viewed by someone other than the owner, permission must be granted or requested for that memory to be viewed by another character. Because the experience is an uncomfortable one for the other characters, the viewing of memories not their own should ideally be kept to a small number.








CONDITIONS UPDATE
THE WEATHER conditions remain fairly typical for early fall: warm days and cool nights. It feels almost like spring arriving except that there fewer red and orange leaves on the ground and more of them oddly returning to the trees and slowly fading to green. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries that have a timelapse of the seasons, only it's going in reverse.

THE FOG has new boundaries.
— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated from the western section of town entirely.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.

DISAPPEARANCES AND DEATHS continue! Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have vanished and Ellie is still missing, though this may be difficult to tell with half the town also seemingly having vanished. Will Graham's body may be found within the ruins of the Old Church; he appears to have been frightened to death. (If someone decides to take care of the body, please report it below. For in-game reasons, this does not need to be coordinated across groups.)

ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.








OOC NOTES
NEW MAP Thanks so much to Scy for yet another amazing new map of Mathias!

UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.

MOD STATUS For those who don't know, I run a summer program that is set to start in just 2 weeks. We've only recently been given the green light to go ahead in person, so it's a scramble to get everything pulled together in time. My non-RP life is going to be busy and chaotic for the next while and I am thus asking for your forgiveness and understanding as things continue to be slow, as I cannot guarantee timely mod responses beyond weekends, and even that is not guaranteed.

NEXT LOG Because of the aforementioned real-life chaos, the next log will be more relaxed and free form with everyone coming back together again and having a few chill days. It would be very much appreciated if some of the more intense investigations could be saved to take place in future logs, as the new locations that are opening up in this log will remain open in the next few at least and there will be plenty of time to explore all their mysteries.

ITEMS FROM HOME The items from home remaining in Baneberry Hall will not be available past this log, at least not in this form, so if you would like to play with these elements, you should not sleep on this opportunity. More things may show up in the future but, for now, this is the main event.

DW NOTIFS Back at the beginning of the year, the issue of missing email notifs was discussed in a code push plurk by Mark of the DW admin team. For those who missed it, the gist is that the issue with missing notifs is not going to be fixed anytime soon. The issue is so sporadic that the dev team has concluded the only way to possibly fix it is to redo the notification system entirely. This issue does not extend to DW's internal inbox, so short of checking every thread you're involved in, the DW inbox is the best way to make sure you're not missing things.

ACTIVITY CHECK Beginning with June's AC (posted at the start of July), all tags that consist of only dialogue will count as 0.5 comments, not just those that occur in an inbox thread. This applies to both AC and AP totals.



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likeknives: (Annoyed - seriously)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-06-20 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"You'd think, with the stuff I tasted."

It's amused, but there's no amusement in his eyes. Just that same, icy coldness.

He doesn't step back, doesn't move. He just keeps his arms crossed, standing in that closed-off manner. He knows that Raylan is posturing too, and he respects that the other man isn't backing down, either.

"Depends on that job, too."

He knows what he means here, he's definitely picking up what he's laying down.

"But if you're really wondering, I don't do those kinds of jobs anymore."

He shakes his head.

"If I need to protect my friends, my family, anybody else that's gettin' bullied by a big bad? I'll do whatever it takes. But I'm not--I'm not the guy I used to be, the guy that got out of the Army and...and found jobs that appreciated my skills. I still hurt people, yeah. I protect now. But I'm not the guy I was."

He tilts his head.

"In case that's what you were worried about."
Edited 2021-06-20 23:46 (UTC)
tinstar: (Okay)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-21 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, Hardison brewed his own beer. Yeah, done incorrectly, it might be a crime.

Eliot didn't move or flinch - Good. Raylan would be very disappointed if that posturing folded like a cheap suit. Hazel eyes stayed locked and steady on Eliot's as Raylan took in a sense of how sincere those sentiments were.

"I'm worried about those skills gettin' put to use against the people here. I'd like to think you wouldn't, but I don't know you much from Adam. You seem like a nice guy," Raylan continued, with a glance up and down him, one hand gesturing out in the sentiment.

"I know what kinda.. skills guys like you come out with. We get a few in the Marshals Service." He knew what he was dealing with here, roughly. Tim, specifically, but he didn't know how the Rangers differed from Special Forces off the top of his head. Tim would, being the former of those listed.

"Place like Mathis, last thing anyone needs to have to worry about is someone we know twistin' the wrong way because they've got a wild hair."
likeknives: (Hurt - I'm protectin' you)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-06-21 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
"Trust is the most important thing in a place like this, and you're not sure if you can trust me."

He gets that, he understands that, and despite his cold demeanor it doesn't sound like he's upset or put off by it. It's fair to him. He understands.

"You wanna protect the people here and that's what I wanna do, too."

He can't prove his worth to him on just a few words, and he understands that, too. If he was in Raylan's place he'd say the exact same thing.

"But you can trust Hardison and Parker. You can ask 'em about me." He's not sure if Raylan has met Parker yet, but he figures it'll happen so enough, if it hasn't happened yet.
tinstar: (See here)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-06-22 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Correct on all three counts. They were in a unique situation; survivalism demanded lines be drawn sooner rather than later and the kind of information that he had now furthered that idea.

"I don't know who Parker is and I've talked to Hardison all of once. Tech guy, fixed the VCR at the rental shop, seems nice enough." It wasn't enough. Still, next time he saw Hardison, some questions were going to be asked. "Little weird now, with all that context but.."

Eliot was going to prove himself, at some point.

"Only thing I care about is madness not takin' us all over and us startin' to find bodies in the street that weren't killed by Mathis." Well, not the only thing but the only thing he cared about right at this very moment, in a general sense.
likeknives: (Neutral - Just talking)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-06-29 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"You'll find out about Parker soon enough," he says wryly, but it's quite affectionate. He speaks of it being like a force of nature, which Parker is quite like. Something that's just gonna happen, one way or another.

"I'm not gonna...I'm not gonna lose it and start killin' folks," Eliot says a bit testily. Despite the horror that's happened to him already, he doesn't like what Raylan is suggesting--like it's a thing that might happen, eventually.

He pushes the thought aside, he can't worry about that right now. He can't be afraid of that because if he is he's gonna lock himself up in some basement somewhere and throw away the key and let the others figure a way out of here. He can't allow himself to be a danger to anyone but he also can't just assume the worst will happen--though he files that away just in case.

"Has that happened before? Here?"
tinstar: (downlooking)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-07-02 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
He was sure he would. Mathis was a small town and generally speaking, it was hard to miss anyone unless you were ignoring everyone. It would help the surprise when Raylan finally finds out 'Parker' is a woman and completes the Mod Squad look.

Raylan only hummed in acknowledgment of the assertion, lips vanishing briefly in a tight line, a faint nod of his head. He'll accept it, the confidence of it until Eliot gives him a reason not to anymore. It was the same deal he'd given everyone else, the one way he could force himself to let go of those very important facts for a little while.

"Not by any of us. Not yet." Raylan looked down at the floorboards and shook his head a little. "But the way Mathis is goin', She's already done some prime damage to people."
likeknives: (Hurt - disarmed)

[personal profile] likeknives 2021-07-06 03:52 am (UTC)(link)
Not yet.

"Yeah, I've seen that first-hand myself."

Been there, got damage. Fun stuff.

Eliot's tone suggests that he's had quite enough of Mathias and all of that, and he shakes his head, scoffing.

"Sometimes I wonder what the end game is here, as if there's a point to this all, like we're bein' experimented on. And then sometimes it's like we're stuck in the middle of this...slow burnin' natural disaster and none of us can do a damn thing about it."
tinstar: (my god)

[personal profile] tinstar 2021-07-07 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"I remember your deal with the fire. Weren't alone in that either." For what that was worth. Everyone was a well layered onion and while they'd only met twice, Raylan had a better rounded image of the man. What he was capable of feeling or showing was just as important as whatever bullshit memory Raylan had seen.

"My bet's still on us bein'.." Raylan took a deep breath, chin tucking and eyebrows lifting a little in his own internal self preparation of saying the words to someone he barely knew, which meant he got less of the traction of trust of character.

"Well, bein' feed for whatever is in Mathis's belly. Feastin' on our fears, our trauma, our anger. That or whatever is runnin' her is just a twisted motherfucker."

Go on. Tell him he's crazy. He'll wait. That's what a reasonable person would say, anyway. Maybe Raylan just wanted to be wrong.